Alive
by kface
Summary: Draco feels empty, but finds an escape written in blood and enacted in pain. He begins to cut- but will it save him, or will he save himself from it? R for self-mutilation and very slight suicidal themes. ONESHOT.


**Disclaimer: **Draco Malfoy and Co. are not mine, whatsoever. Neither is quidditch, nor any of the Hogwarts houses and that lot. They belong to J.K. Rowling or Scholastic or whoever the fuck owns the copyright these days – I do not know exactly. But I repeat, **they are not mine****. However, the plot is and is fact very personal to me. You head _will_ be on a platter if I find you've stolen from me explicitly, although I understand similar themes. After all, there are most probably very similar fics out there to mine, and this resembles yours greatly, it is not on purpose. Do forgive me.**

**Warning:** This is potentially a very dark fic depending on your personal views. It deals with **heavy angst, ****suicidal tendencies, and** heavy self-mutilation**. That means **cutting** people, or **self-injury**. Also be warned for a wide and slightly colorful variety of ****language.**

**A/N:** This story is about cutting. If you feel there is a lack of a cause to Draco's actions, I am sorry. It is about cutting: not what causes people to start cutting. Hopefully his reasons are spelled out enough for you. I am very sorry if this offends you, but I refuse to condemn cutting. No, it is not good for you. Please do not start. In my experiences, it is addicting. Draco's story honestly is my own in several respects: what I've done, why I have, how I've felt. Not a day goes by still when I don't want to cut, and it's been a month and a half since I last cut. Don't let yourself do that – please. But as I was saying, I won't condemn. It feels good, and for some people cutting is even healthy- the only way to prevent worse damage. Anyway, please return the favor to me and not flame because like I said: it hits very close to home. It practically is home, really, aside from the whole Millicent thing. I didn't have a Millicent with a cutting sister: I had a grandfather who was a WWII POW who died in December. I felt terrible about wasting his sacrifices, so stopped. Anyway, review if you want, don't if you want- just please don't flame. Enjoy, and I hope this helps someone. It certainly has helped me exorcise my rampaging little demons.

The pain is pleasurable after a certain point. It builds and builds and builds, taking years, until one day you suddenly realize something that will change everything: it will always hurt, and you might as well enjoy it. And if you're empty, filling only with others' emotions and your own blood, it's a damn good way to feel whole again.  
  


It was like that for me. I'd fear being hurt, was afraid of the blood, until one day I noticed: damn, it burns. But holy fuck, I feel like me again.  
  


Maybe it was a result of a slowly rising depression, or maybe of no self-worth. People always say I can do anything, I'm perfect, but I'm not. I'm nothing. And even if I know I really _am_ something, I can't bring myself to believe it. Maybe it's all a mask. I don't know anymore. I don't know who I am.  
  


But it was that one night, leaning over an essay in the middle of the night – cold and tired and fuck, will this ever end? – when she scratched me, hard and deep. The cat had spectacularly sharp claws, and had just managed to tear a line from the base of the palm down two inches, right above the vein. If she only knew the gift, or maybe it's a curse, that she had given me.  
  


It hurt, oh gods it hurt, but it burned. It burned and I felt alive. I was alive: I could see and feel that in the strong pulsing of the torn flesh, the beauty of dripping ruby blood. I savored it. I savored it, but I didn't think of going further – not yet.  
  


I got the idea of cutting during the next few days back in classes.  
  


"Holy shit, Draco! What did you do?"  
  


It was Blaise who first noticed- quiet little dark-haired Blaise, observant and utterly Slytherin in his own way.  
  


"That kneazle of Jason's – the fourth year's – scratched me last night."  
  


My other classmates leaned over the breakfast table and peered at the raw pink wound. It was just starting to heal over and still burned hotly.  
  


"Draco!" Pansy squealed. It was just like her really: loud and so very melodramatic. At least she cared, I suppose: it wasn't gossip like it probably was to that third year that turned her head and gazed at it. "You weren't trying to kill yourself, right Draco?"  
  


I blinked slowly. I wasn't suicidal then. Sure, I thought of the peace the afterworld must bring, but I never considered sending myself there. That didn't come until much later and even then I never thought to act upon my musings.  
  


"No, Pansy: it was a cat."  
  


"My older sister slit her wrists once," Millicent murmured as she traced the scratch gently. "You need to cut much deeper, though, and farther. She didn't cut deep enough and only passed out from blood loss."  
  


"It was a cat."  
  


No one believed me, or maybe they were only joking. I don't know at this point anymore. All through the day my housemates would steal a quick glance when they thought I wasn't looking, or even stare openly, as Pansy did, with her characteristic worried frown. In Herbology, a Hufflepuff Blaise and I were partnered with openly stared at it with wide innocent dark brown eyes, sickly fascinated. After all: who'd ever imagine Draco "I-am-God" Malfoy to off himself? I surely wouldn't, and I'd know best.  
  


It was the day the wound truly started healing in earnest that I contemplated cutting. The pulsating burn reminding me that, yes, I am alive, was gone, leaving behind a steady itching sensation as the skin started to grow again. Once again I felt empty, full with only Pansy and Millicent's soft giggling, Blaise's quiet pondering. I'd sit near Granger and Potter in the library and feel content, their friendship radiating peaceful vibes. But I'm not a people person and I never will be, no matter charismatic I may be when I choose to. I didn't want to stick around people just to feel happy. So I didn't, simple as that.  
  


I didn't start straight off with cutting. I was afraid: what if I hit a vein again? What if it bled too much? So I started with pain.  
  


I'd run my perfectly manicured fingernail down the flesh of the arm, pressing hard. It would burn for a few seconds before faintly flickering away, leaving me empty and with ugly white scratch marks down pale white arms. It gave me little satisfaction and no lasting happiness: on to the next step.  
  


I moved on with my ways to feel pain, utilizing a bobby pin I had once stole out of the girls' bathroom when Blaise and Greg and Vincent were taking absolutely forever getting ready one morning. So I stole into my female yearmates' bathroom and for once received no odd looks as I perfected my hair or gazed appraisingly at my face. That had been the day I made the decision to go further, and I was oddly happy for once.  
  


Soon the tickling scratches of dulled metal on skin weren't satisfying enough either. The wrist wound had finally healed completely, leaving me with a beautiful peach colored scar. I loved it. I still love my scars. I love my scars like I crave pain.  
  


Lying in bed one Sunday night, reading text for a class the next morning, I reached another turning point. Even the itching was better than nothing; I had to make another cut. Idly I glanced around my bedside. On the shelf built into the dungeon wall beside my bed, I saw a pair of tweezers: lovely metal things with terrifically sharp points. In other words, they were my next step to self-destruction.    
  


I drew my curtains closed around my large four-poster bed and picked up the silver tweezers, caressing them with soft pale fingers. I tugged off my shirt and gazed down at my body; where wouldn't anyone notice? Sod all, I chose to mark my arm, dragging sharp points squeezed together lightly across my skin. Pressing down harder, I relished in the delightful pricks of pain I felt as I carved away skin. I made no long scratches this time, instead digging only as deep enough to draw a thin line of hot crimson blood from the centimeter long wound, smiling in the burning and the feeling of being alive.  
  


Yes, it hurt. Yes, I knew it was stupid. But really, so was I, right? And it felt so damn good…  
  


I fell asleep contented that night.  
  


The next morning when I woke it was with a smile and then a frown. I was alive, as was made obvious from the burn I felt and the bright red mark on my arm I saw. Oh yes, I was alive, but for how long?  
  


I felt disgusted with myself and guilty as hell. Was I so weak that I had to cut to feel alive? And what would Mother say, whose father had just recently died and who had previously been an auror working to save all of our lives. Was I just a waste of life? Was I wasting life? My self-esteem dropped lower, and with it, my self-worth. I was nothing. Alive, yes, but nothing.  
  


But the shame and disgust didn't stop my little weakness. Two nights later there were two little screaming red lines against my pale skin, marring the perfect surface. After all, I wasn't perfect: why should my arm be? It shouldn't. They were the proof of my failure to be perfect, secretly manifested at night with silver tweezers.  
  


It felt so good, so damn good to feel alive again. For a while it was to hell with the guilt and the negative feelings; I could live with being nothing. But could I live without being alive? I didn't want to.  
  


It wasn't until the next week when there were three cuts lying side by side of the surface of my inner left forearm that anyone noticed, or at least noticed and said something. I was sitting in Divination, and we were studying palmistry.  
  


Pansy, my partner in that class as Blaise had instead taken Muggle Studies, grabbed hold of my left arm roughly and pulled it sharply forward. She shoved back the dangling sleeve of my black robes and her eyes swept over my forearm. Frowning again, she looked back up and searched my eyes looking for a reason in unfathomable silver-gray irises. She wouldn't find one.  
  


"A kneazle, Draco: like hell a kneazle!" Her dark blue eyes slipped shut for a few seconds before opening again, exposing a thin veneer of tears. "Why?" she whispered quietly, a contrast to her earlier angry tone.  
  


I liked her angry tone better. How did you explain to a friend you'd known since childhood you just didn't feel alive again?  
  


"I don't know." I hesitated. "It feels good."  
  


Her eyes became sharp again, piercing indigo glaring down at my arm and then up again. "It feels good? It fucking _feels good, Draco?"  
  
_

I remember sighing. She'd never understand, and I was thankful for that. She shouldn't have to feel the emptiness. "Yeah, it does Pansy. And it really was a fucking kneazle on my wrist, okay?" I could tell my own tone had become cold and spiteful.  
  


Her mood suddenly shifted again. I had hurt her with my attitude. "Right, Draco," she whispered turning down her eyes once more and focusing on my palm. A tear slipped out of them. "Right." She started her reading.  
  


However, even Pansy's reaction didn't stop me. It brought more self-loathing and less self-worth. So worthless; why did I deserve to live?  
  


My thoughts often turned to cutting and suicide in the coming week, but I never did anything besides scratch new designs and marks onto my left arm. I had a rather striking rose carved into my upper bicep for a while until it healed. Unlike my scratches on my forearm, that did not scar.  
  


Like everything seemingly, things got worse before they got better. I found a pair of scissors in a store located with Hogsmeade one weekend and bought them on the spur of the moment, admiring the sharp steel blades. Those scissors became my new best friend.  
  


Night after night I would draw them down my arm with enough force to draw blood over and over again. Come morning I would have dozens of burning lines down my forearm, bright red against a white background, looking as if my arm had been mauled. They hurt more than anything I had done so far had, and they were by far my favorite.  
  


They were also the most uniquely healing cuts I had ever seen. While my normal scratches and wounds would go through a cycle of burning, then itching, and then healing, leaving peach colored scars or dug out scars, their process was entirely new. I noted it with a strange sort of fascination, not unlike the Hufflepuff's interest in my first cut. This wound would burn for days and not fade to a quieter pink tone for a week. They remained loud and bright for as long as they hurt, proving to me I was alive, oh yes I was. They would eventually heal to soft pink scars after a few weeks, before those scars disappeared completely in a few more weeks. They were interesting.  
  


But these, my favorite and most rewarding, would be the bane of my addiction.  
  


Millicent noted them one day in Ancient Runes and sighed. Unlike Pansy, she wasn't angry or accusing, just gloomy.   
  


"My sister cut her wrists again last week, you know."  
  


I looked up at her and drew an eyebrow up. "Is she okay?"  
  


Millicent's green-gray eyes became downcast, becoming immeasurably sad. "No. No, she isn't. She cut deeper this time. Her funeral was Sunday."  
  


I couldn't help but be terribly struck by her sorrow and suddenly I felt sick to my stomach. I was so stupid, so horribly stupid. I was tossing my mortality around like a quaffle, not caring if it someday broke. I didn't _deserve_ the pleasure of cutting, the reward of feeling alive. Not if I didn't respect life. "I'm sorry, Millicent. I'm so sorry," I whispered softly, sorry for her loss and sorry for my actions. So stupid.  
  


"It's okay, Draco. She's happier now: finally in the afterworld with her baby and husband." She caught my hidden meaning and smiled faintly but didn't remark upon it, just as I could count on her to. "Life goes on."  
  


"Yes, yes it does."  
  


That night I made a vow to myself. I would never cut again, and I listed out my reasons in the journal I had made of my cuts and their dates, why I did them. I have kept that vow this past month, but it has been a struggle. Multiple times I've found myself running a knife lovingly across my stomach or digging into my skin with whatever I can find. I've resorted to biting my flesh occasionally to relieve the urge, but I know it will never go away. Everyday I think about cutting, how I miss it or how stupid I was to ever do it. I'm happy I stopped, but I crave it with my every being. To feel alive is a wonderful thing, and on the days when that is impossible for me, it is a terrible struggle not to reach for the scissors and draw a few drops of blood: just enough to make a scratch.  
  


I miss it so much.   
  


So damn much.


End file.
